Lurking in the Dark
by R.C. McLachlan
Summary: The Briefs house is full of monsters. (Or, the one in which Bulma is an awesome mom.)


It feels like only minutes have passed from the moment her head hit the pillow before something grabs her shoulder and shakes her out of a hard sleep. She startles, muscles seizing in an instant, and she struggles to lift her arm from beneath the blankets to strike out at whoever's attacking her.

"Mama? Mama, wake up, _please_."

Trunks's tear-stained voice breaks through the haze of sleep and, Inhaling sharply through her nose, Bulma forces herself to wake up all the way. Her eyes ache when they open and it takes longer than it should for them to adjust to the darkness of her room, but she manages to spy the outline of her little boy standing next to her bed. He still hasn't let go of her shoulder.

"Baby, whassamatter?" It's barely intelligible through the jaw-cracking yawn that bursts out of her the second she opens her mouth, but Trunks crowds close, smelling of sweat and salt.

"Mama, there's a monster in my room."

His fingers bite into her shoulder without mercy and, hissing in startled pain, she pulls away to clumsily sit up, the blankets pooling sadly in her lap. "A monster?"

She can see him better with each passing moment and her heart cramps at the sight of him. He's curled miserably into himself, hunching forward as if expecting a blow, and the thin stream of street light beaming through a crack in the blinds catches on the soaked skin of his cheeks.

"A scary purple one." He nods, shivering. "He-He killed Papa, and he said he was there to take me away."

A bullshit platitude is ready to go on her tongue, but she bites it back at the last second. Anyone else would be able to write this off as their kid's overactive imagination at play, but she honestly can't. With all the weird shit that the group deals with on a nearly constant basis, there very well _could_ be a monster in Trunks's room. Stranger things have happened. Way stranger.

Heaving a sigh, Bulma throws back the covers and stands, rolling her shoulder a few times. There will no doubt be five finger-shaped bruises there come morning.

The second she's on her feet, Trunks cleaves to her side, and she cups a hand over the back of his neck.

"All right, kiddo. Let's go investigate."

"Mama, no! What if he's still there? He'll kill you!" Trunks peers up at her with wide, terrified eyes.

She sinks her hand into his hair, grips lightly, and gives him a gentle, reassuring shake. "Trunks, I may not be as strong as the rest of our friends, but I can guarantee you that this monster doesn't stand a chance against me. Know why?"

He shakes his head.

"Because he threatened my boy. For that, he's gonna pay dearly." And she means it.

They walk slowly down the hall, her longer strides held back for Trunks, who grips her arm so tight that there will most certainly be a bracelet of blacks and blues to match the string on her shoulder. When they get to his room, Bulma presses her back to the wall next to the doorway. She brings a finger to her lips and he nods, miming a zipping motion across his own mouth.

 _Be careful, Mama_ , he mouths.

She winks at him, because she's never been careful a day in her life, and then she steps into his bedroom. Flicking on the light reveals his bed—the sheets thrown on the floor as if he'd struggled out of them in his haste to get to her room, poor kid—his enormous toy box, his closed closet door, his bureau, the TV mounted innocuously on the wall… and nothing else.

"If there are any monsters in here, consider this your eviction notice," she says loudly, waits a few beats, and then knocks on the wall. "Come on in, baby. It's safe."

"What if he's hiding in the closet?" Trunks calls from the hallway.

She crosses the room and whips open the closet door, and she parts the clothes hanging there to peer around. "Nothing in here but stuff you begged me to buy and haven't worn."

There's a rustle of movement, and she glances over her shoulder to see Trunks peek around the doorframe.

"What about under my bed?"

Yawning, she walks over to his mussed bed, kicks the sheets aside, and makes a show of checking under it.

"As if a monster could even _fit_ under your bed. Trunks, when the hell was the last time you cleaned under here?"

Trunks mumbles something and won't look her in the eye.

Bulma straightens up and runs a hand through her hair, jaw cracking with another yawn. "Well, kiddo, it looks like there was no monster here after all. I think you're good to go back to sleep."

But Trunks remains rooted where he stands, peering at his bed with the kind of mistrust that says _I'm never sleeping there again_. "But… Mama, he was so scary. He was the _scariest_ monster ever. He said he killed Papa and said that he was going to blow up the whole world!"

It's been a long-running hypothesis of hers that saiyans possess some type of latent psionic ability, and this might be the evidence she needs to push it into a theory. She's never mentioned Frieza in Trunks's presence and she knows that Vegeta would cut out his own tongue before he would utter that name again. There's always a chance that Trunks might have heard it from one of the others, but she very much doubts it. If anything, he's gleaned it from his father's own nightmares.

She sighs, then cracks a helpless smile. "You know what always makes _me_ feel better after I deal with something scary?"

"No, what?"

They're half-way through their respective sundaes when the last of the fear in Trunks's eyes recedes, and he beams at her from across the kitchen counter, mouth smeared with whipped cream.

Yawning, she scoops some vanilla and melted fudge with her spoon and smiles back. The clock on the microwave burns _3:17am_ into her retinas when she glances at it, and exhaustion pulls at her eyelids. She'll be dead on her feet during her meeting with CoreTech, but this is what it's all about, isn't it? Her boy is happy and safe, and hey: they get ice cream out of the deal.

There's movement out of the corner of her eye and she jumps, as does Trunks, as Vegeta walks in.

He gives them a suspicious glare. "What is this?"

Trunks ducks his head and focuses all his attention on his ice cream, shame radiating from his every pore. As of late, he's taken to hiding all possible weakness from his father, lest he lose Vegeta's respect.

Except she's not about that bullshit, especially not at three in the morning. Primly, she eats another spoonful of sundae. "A monster visited our son tonight."

Vegeta blinks. "A what?"

"A purple monster," she says pointedly, shooting him a _look_. "The _scariest_ monster ever, who threatened to kidnap a saiyan prince after killing his father."

Vegeta's face, flushed from the last of his late-night training, bleeds to white, and he stares at Trunks with something like terror. His mouth opens but nothing comes out. This is most likely something Vegeta never expected to confront, and despite his questionable parenting Bulma knows that he would rather die than force his son to know his past—even the parts that weren't his fault.

She thinks of the boy he once was—just as scared and helpless as their son had been—and jerks her head toward the cabinets. "Grab a bowl. I think we left enough for one more."

He stares at her, his expression softening into something she can't read, and then snaps out of it almost immediately. Normally, this is the part where he'd sneer at her and storm out, but Vegeta is nothing if not full of surprises. He silently makes his way to the cabinet, pulls down a bowl, and moves to where she'd left out the cartons of vanilla, chocolate, and pistachio. He scoops out whatever's left from all three, dabs a bit of fudge over his bounty, and then pours a shit-ton of whipped cream over it.

Mouth full of ice cream, she kicks out a chair for him, which he sinks into with a little huff and starts shoveling spoonful after spoonful down his gullet.

"Mama," Trunks pipes up, looking pleased as punch that they're all there. "Are you sure the monster's gone?"

Vegeta pauses.

Bulma doesn't look at him when she says, "Positive. And even if he were ever to come back, you know I'd never let anything happen to you. _Or_ Papa."

"Promise?"

Vegeta's gaze on her is about as subtle as he's ever been—so, not very. "Cross my heart. Now finish up so we can all go to bed. I don't know about you, but all this talk about monsters is making me tired."

Nodding furiously, Trunks's spoon scrapes the sides of his bowl, and he licks at every smear of fudge and whipped cream clinging to it. He drops it into his empty bowl with a clatter, sitting back with a sated sigh. "Thanks, Mama. That was really good."

She holds out her own empty bowl to him. "Go put these in the sink and then we'll head up."

Trunks looks at Vegeta, indecisive. "What about Papa?"

"I'll struggle through," Vegeta says with only a little bit of snark.

"What if there are monsters under _your_ bed, Papa?"

"Apparently your mother will take care of it."

Trunks brightens and nods. "Mama's awesome like that."

"Isn't she just." Vegeta gives his spoon a lascivious lick. "Scram, brat. Get to bed."

"Good night, Papa!" Trunks trills, then pounds out of the kitchen and upstairs like a herd of elephants.

Bulma yawns, stretches, and heads for the doorway. She tosses a wave over her shoulder. "Night."

"Are you going to check under my bed for monsters, too?"

At that, she stops and turns, and Vegeta gives her a smoldering look that harkens back to the days when the only things that knew her body better than her own hands were his. It's been a long time since, and she shivers as though it were the first time.

But it's almost 3:30 in the goddamn morning. Fuck him if he thinks they're going to do this now.

"Nope. You're a big, tough saiyan—I think you can handle it." She pauses in the doorway. "But if you're that worried, my bed is monster-free."

He grins. "Oh?"

"Wake me up and _die_ ," she vows, then leaves. If he joins her tonight, awesome—she's always slept better with someone next to her. If he doesn't, it probably won't be too long before he does.

It's been a while since there was a monster anywhere near _her_ bed. She's way past due.

* * *

 _Written for the tumblr prompt: "I love how you write Bulma as a parent. How about her consoling a wee Trunks after a nightmare? Bonus points if Vegeta features."_


End file.
